This invention pertains to the art of transport and support systems and, more particularly, to a selectively mountable transport bracket for use with an invalid or hospital patient transport vehicle.
The invention is particularly applicable to a selectively transportable equipment support system for operative association with a hospital bed and, more particularly, to a transport system for equipment primarily to be used for patient care to and from an operating room to an intensive care unit. However, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention could be readily adapted for use in other environments as, for example, where similar transport and support devices are employed for the convenient transport of other types of equipment.
For very ill hospital patients, such as for example cardiac surgery patients, there is a great deal of equipment associated with their treatment. Much of this equipment will comprise infusion pumps and intravenous solutions. A common problem in all hospitals is how to transport the equipment which is in operative use with the patient, along with the patient over long distances through the hospital, across elevator thresholds or around hallway corners. Frequently, several nurses are required to handle the transport of the patient and the equipment. Some nurses will be moving the bed containing the patient, other nurses would be pushing IV stands and other equipment support devices. The number of people involved, the instability of some of the equipment support systems during rolling movement and normal path obstacles such as elevator thresholds have all combined to make it troublesome and difficult for the movement of the patient and equipment when moving the patient to and from an operating room or from and to an intensive care unit or a patient holding area.
In addition, the complexity and size of some of the equipment now used for patient care demands more stable and reliable support devices to insure the safety of the equipment. As the equipment increases in size, weight, and variety, a support system has long been needed which will conveniently allow for the secure support of the equipment, its easy maneuverability for the convenience of the patient and its easy transport during times when the equipment is operatively associated with the patient and the patient needs to be moved from place to place in the hospital.
The various forms and types of equipment support and transport systems for infusion pump equipment and the like have heretofore suffered from all these problems. The present invention comprises a new and improved method and system which overcomes all of the above referred to problems and others to provide a new invalid equipment transport and support system which is simple in design, economical to manufacture, readily adaptable to a plurality of uses with patient transport vehicles having a variety of dimensional characteristics, easy to attach, easy to remove, and easy to transport to provide improved equipment support and improved convenience and safety to a hospital patient.